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The history of the Jews of Thessaloniki reaches back two thousand years. The city of Thessaloniki (also known as Salonika) housed a major Jewish community, mostly Eastern Sephardim, until the middle of the Second World War. Sephardic Jews immigrated to the city following the expulsion of Jews from Spain by Catholic rulers under the Alhambra ...
Benaroya was interested in the Jewish Question since the beginning of his career and made efforts to promote Jewish causes throughout it. His first book was The Jewish Question and Social Democracy (1908) while once in Thessaloniki he founded a group called the Sephardic Circle of Socialist Studies. He also played a leading role in the creation ...
Although Jews were spread throughout the Ottoman Empire, the cities of Constantinople and Salonica, also called Thessaloniki, had Jewish populations of about 20,000 Jewish people by the early 16th century. [17] Salonica was considered the main center of Jewish life in the Ottoman Empire.
Macedonian-era crater at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. The town was founded around 315 BC by King Cassander of Macedon, on or near the site of the ancient town of Therma and twenty-six other local villages. Cassander named the new city after his wife Thessalonike, a half-sister of Alexander the Great.
Avraam Benaroya Jewish workers march, 1908 - 1909. Idealistic and pragmatist at the same time, Avraam Benaroya, a Jew from Bulgaria, played a leading role in the creation of the mainly Jewish Fédération Socialiste Ouvrière in Thessaloniki, in May–June 1909.
The New Testament describes Greek Jews as a separate community from the Jews of Judaea, and the Jews of Greece did not participate in the First Jewish-Roman War or later conflicts. The Jews of Thessaloniki, speaking a dialect of Greek, and living a Hellenized existence, were joined by a new Jewish colony in the 1st century AD.
Gradually, the chief center of the Sephardi Jews became Thessaloniki, where the Spanish Jews soon outnumbered coreligionists of other nationalities and, at one time, the original native inhabitants. Although the status of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire may have often been exaggerated, [39] it is undeniable that they enjoyed tolerance.
The vast Sephardic immigration allowed Thessaloniki to be a hub for diverse Jewish ideas. This large presence and advancement of Jews served as a strong national symbol of Jewish prosperity. [62] Thessaloniki was referred to as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans." [63] This Jewish dominance of Thessaloniki continued through the end of Ottoman rule ...